


DIY at the Brooklyn Bungalow

by Eienvine



Category: The Good Cop (TV)
Genre: F/M, Future Fic, TJ and Cora with children
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-04
Updated: 2018-11-04
Packaged: 2019-08-17 12:28:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,096
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16516514
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eienvine/pseuds/Eienvine
Summary: Cora struggles with her past affecting her present. TJ and Ryan become unexpected YouTube stars. The kids just want some Halloween costumes.





	DIY at the Brooklyn Bungalow

**Author's Note:**

> This odd little story was inspired by a discussion we had about Cora over on the Good Cop Fandom Slack group. (If any of you are interested in joining us, comment below and we can get you added to the group!) Point is, I don't know if this story will be good for those who weren't part of the discussion; if fact, I don't know if it'll be any good even for those were. :) But, uh, I had fun writing it?

. . . . . .

It all starts with that stupid cartoon. You know, _The Puzzlers_ , the new one with the robots that go around solving problems for their neighbors by building contraptions to get cats out of trees or help old ladies reach things on high shelves.

Like every other four-year-old in America, Constance Caruso is obsessed with it. Her mother Cora thinks the show’s pretty moronic, but she’s read all these articles that say it’s supposed to teach kids spatial awareness and critical thinking and teamwork and goodness knows what else, so she allows it in the house. Anyway it’s not like she could avoid it; it’s really good of Tony Sr. to watch the kids during the day, but it does make it harder for Cora to keep an eye on what they get exposed to. And she supposes that if Tony likes having something he can plop them in front of when he needs to do the laundry or clean the kitchen . . . well, better _The Puzzlers_ than reruns of _NYPD Blue_ or whatever weird thing Tony might put on.

The point is, Constance informs them one night at dinner that she has decided that she would like to be Clankette for Halloween.

“That’s the green one,” Tony supplies helpfully. “I’ve seen these stupid robots enough to know.”

“Dad!” scolds TJ, who placed a family swear jar in the kitchen the day after Constance was born and who has decided that “stupid” is one of the words he doesn't want his children to learn just yet.

“She’s the one with retractable arms,” says Tony with dignity, and returns to trying to convince Trey to eat his carrots.

“Can I be Clankette? Please?” asks Constance, with those big pleading eyes Cora can never say no to.

“Sure, honey,” Cora says, and turns to TJ. “There’s got to be a million YouTube tutorials on how to make one, right? Since the show is so popular?”

So Cora sets out to create a Clankette costume. But she quickly learns that she was wrong: there is in fact precisely one YouTube tutorial on the subject, and it is genuinely terrible, so Cora has to try to figure out how to make this on her own. And so it is that she finds herself sitting out on the back patio on the night before Constance needs her costume for a pre-Halloween party at a neighbor's house, surrounded by cardboard boxes and green spray paint, trying to decide if she wants to laugh hysterically or start swearing up a storm.

Probably the former. She doesn’t want to have to put anything in the swear jar.

“This looks . . . exciting,” comes a voice from behind her, and she jumps about a foot because she was so stressed out that she didn’t even hear the back door open.

“This is a disaster,” she informs TJ as he comes out to sit beside her. Ryan is with him, which isn’t surprising; his new apartment is so far from the squad room that after some late work nights, he just crashes on the Carusos' couch.

“Are you trying to make a Creeper?” Ryan asks, surveying the mess.

“What the . . . _heck_ is a Creeper?”

Ryan’s expression says it should’ve been obvious. “From Minecraft.”

She stares blankly. “I never know what you’re talking about.”

TJ comes loyally to her defense. “I can definitely tell that it’s . . . maybe supposed to be a robot.”

“Thank you,” she says drily.

“Oh, from that kids’ show!” Ryan realizes. “Yeah, this doesn’t look anything like that.”

“Thank you,” she says again, even drier still, then drops her face into her hands, hoping there’s no green paint on them. “This is a disaster.”

“Sweetheart, why didn’t you just buy a costume?”

“Because I thought I could do this!” Cora says. “She’s a robot! She’s just made of squares! That’s not hard! I solve murders every day; I should be able to make a robot costume.”

TJ just looks at her.

“And because all the stores are closed now!”

Still, he just looks at her, and she sighs in defeat, her shoulders slumping. “And because your mom never let you guys buy a costume. I wanted to . . . keep up the tradition.”

His face softens into a smile, and he puts an arm around her shoulders. “Why don’t you let me take a crack at it?” he asks. “Mom made me help her make my costumes. Maybe I can figure something out.”

And now Cora has a conundrum, because part of her isn’t ready to give up yet, and part of her wants nothing more than to hand this off to her husband and go to bed. “She’s my kid,” she objects. “I should be able to . . .”

“She’s my kid too,” TJ points out. “Besides, I know you were up before 5 catching that murder at Fort Greene Park.”

It’s true, she was, and now she is dead on her feet. She hesitates, hearing the siren call of sweet sleep, and TJ presses, “You’ve already made a good start. I can take it from here.”

“I’ll help him, Mrs. C!” Ryan volunteers.

Agreeing feels like defeat, but Cora is too tired to care. “Fine,” she says. “But you wake me up if you need any help.”

“Absolutely,” TJ agrees, and kisses her good night. She heads upstairs and is asleep before her head hits the pillow.

. . . . . .

The next day, there are two surprises waiting for her. The first is an incredibly impressive Clankette costume sitting in the kitchen, complete with retractable arms that TJ has somehow fashioned out of pipe. Constance is beside herself with joy, and Cora can’t wait to take her to the party this afternoon.

The second comes at lunch, when she sees Burl and a couple uniforms gathered around Ryan’s computer. “Twelve hundred views?” Burl asks. “Is that good?”

“In four hours?” Ryan asks. “It’s amazing.”

“What are you looking at?” Cora asks, and Ryan beams at her.

“I’ll send you the link.”

So Cora sits at her computer and clicks on the link, and it opens a rather unexpected YouTube video. Channel name: DIY at the Brooklyn Bungalow. Number of subscribers: 29. Views: 1254. Video title: DIY Clankette costume (with retractable arms!) Video content . . . appears to be TJ Caruso making a costume out of cardboard boxes and green spray paint.

“What is this?” she asks Ryan.

“I recorded TJ last night,” he explains. “I wasn’t much help, but I didn’t want to go to bed, since I said I’d help. So I filmed him instead. And then I thought, people might really find this useful. That show is, like, super popular. And there’s, like, not any costume tutorials on YouTube.”

“You make videos now?”

Ryan looks a little affronted. “You aren’t subscribed to my YouTube channel?”

Discretion is the better part of valor. So instead of answering, Cora puts in her headphones and watches the video.

And it’s actually kind of amazing. It’s amazing to watch TJ look at the various components and just figure out what to do with them; it’s amazing how clear and precise his instructions are. Even after five years of marriage, she still likes to tease him about what a perfectionist he is, what a nerd, what a stickler for details, but maybe thinking that way has its advantages, if it lets him think through and then explain this process so thoroughly.

It’s amazingly well-edited, with really professional-looking opening titles, and text at the bottom of the screen explaining each step. Ryan stays behind the scenes the whole time, but he prompts TJ to explain what he’s doing, and makes a handful of his usual off-the-wall comments, and keeps the proceedings pretty funny. Even with the joking, TJ stays so focused on what he’s doing that Cora’s not sure that he even realizes he’s being recorded.

But the most compelling part, by far, is when Constance wakes up and goes into the kitchen for a drink. “Daddy!” she exclaims in a wonder-struck whisper. “Is that my costume?”

TJ clearly didn’t know he was being filmed at this point, or he’d never have been so easy and comfortable as he is as he turns and smiles at his daughter. “Yep, this is all for you,” he says. “Do you like it?”

Constance pads over the table and climbs into TJ’s lap, her pudgy little fingers reaching out with awe-filled reverence to stroke the costume. “It’s beautiful,” she says breathlessly, then turns around and stands up on TJ’s lap so she can throw her arms around his neck. “It’s the best costume in the world,” she says solemnly.

“Well, you’re my favorite daughter in the world,” TJ replies. They remain in the embrace for a moment, until TJ laughs. “Now you’d better go to bed. If your mom catches you up, I’ll be the one who gets in trouble.”

Constance kisses her father on the cheek and scurries away. Three more minutes of the video go by as TJ finishes the costume. When it’s finally finished, TJ leans back and stretches.

“Great job, detective!” Ryan declares.

TJ smiles, exhausted but pleased. Then he looks up at Ryan. “Wait, were you recording this whole thing?”

Cut to black.

And Cora is amazed. It managed to be informational, funny and heartwarming, all inside ten minutes. And the commenters seem to agree.

_“Thank you so much! I have been looking everywhere for a good tutorial and this is so clear and easy to follow! I know what my daughter is being for Halloween!”_

_“your daughter is so cute I AM DYING”_

_“please do annedroid next, I can’t find a tutorial for her anywhere”_

_“Who is behind the camera? He is hilarious. I don’t even have kids or watch Puzzlers but this video is giving me life.”_

_“please make more videos”_

Out of curiosity, Cora refreshes the page. The view count has climbed to 1322 and the channel now has 34 subscribers. She removes her headphones and looks up at Ryan.

“So?” he grins. “What did you think?”

“How in the world did that happen?”

“I stayed up all night editing!” Ryan exclaims, and now that she’s looking for it, she can see the dark circles under his eyes. “I just thought what I filmed was so good! It was easy to do the video because I spend a lot of time watching YouTube; I know what gets views. Then I slept for an hour, and then when I woke up I sent links around to some people I know. And it just went from there.”

“Some people you know?”

He shrugs. “I’m friends with a lot of mommy bloggers.”

That doesn’t surprise her as much as it probably should.

“So,” he says again, “what did you think?”

“It looked really good, Ryan; good job,” she says honestly. “But did TJ give you permission to post that?”

“Kinda, but he was also half asleep at the time.” Ryan doesn’t seem to see the problem with this.

“Well, did he specifically give you permission to put Constance up on YouTube?”

Ryan freezes. “ . . . no.”

“And you see that might be a problem?”

“ . . . sorry Cora.”

He looks so abashed that she gives him a smile. “Look,” she says, “you only see the side of her face, and he never calls her or himself by name. And this does seem to have already helped a lot of people, and I know how stressful it was not to have any good tutorials for making this costume. So go ahead and leave it up. But next time, ask!”

“Will do,” Ryan, says, clearly relieved, and Cora chuckles and goes back to eating her lunch, refreshing the YouTube page every so often just to watch in amazement as the numbers rise.

. . . . . .

One of Ryan’s mommy bloggers must really push the video at some point in the afternoon, because when Cora checks after Constance’s Halloween party, there are 11,287 views and the channel has 88 subscribers, despite only having one video on it. TJ is absolutely baffled by his sudden success (as Ryan said, he was half asleep when he agreed to the video being posted, and has very little recollection of it), but Tony is thrilled. He never really gave up on his dream of being famous, and apparently having TJ in a mildly successful YouTube video is close enough to famous to make him absurdly happy.

The numbers climb all night and into the next day, and when the video has 30,000 views after only being online for a day and a half, TJ finally gives in and asks Cora to read him some of the comments.

“I’m sure they’re all terrible,” he says tightly. “Isn’t that the number one rule of YouTube? Never read the comments?”

“These are good,” she assures him. “Seriously, they’re almost all positive. Most people are so glad there’s finally a good _Puzzlers_ tutorial, and a lot of them are commenting on how cute Constance is and how funny Ryan is.” She shoots him a mischievous glance. “And there’s quite a few saying how attractive you are.”

Predictably, TJ flames bright red; the guy still gets a little uncomfortable when she, his wife of five years, tells him he’s attractive, so it’s no big surprise that he’d be very uncomfortable hearing it from strangers. But she sees perfectly well that he also sits up a little straighter when he hears that: it’s giving him a boost of confidence.

“Try not to run away with a fan any time soon,” she says drily.

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” he says sincerely. “You know too much about how to make a homicide look like an accident.”

“And don’t you forget it,” she says serenely, and keeps scrolling through the comments. “You also have about fifty requests for other characters from that show.”

TJ perks up. “Seriously?”

“Seriously. Apparently everyone wants to dress up their kid like a robot this year.”

“Would that—would that be helpful?” he asks. “Because I could do that.”

And she smiles fondly at her husband, who finds the prospect of helping people more compelling than Internet fame. “It definitely seems like some people need it.”

And so it is that two days later, another video appears: “DIY Anne-droid costume (with glowing eyes).” This one starts out a little more shaky; now that TJ knows he’s being filmed, he becomes much more self-conscious. But only for a minute; soon he settles down, and the video proceeds with lots of bizarre commentary from Ryan, and finishes with Constance modeling the costume on camera (with her face covered by the robot head; apparently Ryan took what Cora said to heart); the highlight is her singing the _Puzzlers_ theme song with great determination and pretty decent pitch (she takes after her grandpa that way) but twice as fast as it should go.

This one doesn’t do quite as well as the first, but it’s still getting a lot of views: just over 10,000 by the time Cora goes to bed, while the original video has climbed to 55,423. The channel has 207 subscribers, and the comments are filled again with glowing reviews and requests for other robots.

Other videos follow, all through the month of October, and the comments are filled with exclamations that TJ has “made my son’s Halloween!” Ryan is basking in the glow of being a successful YouTube content creator, something that apparently has long been a goal of his, and Tony comes home from a dentist appointment to proudly inform them that his hygienist showed him an MSN article calling DIY at the Brooklyn Bungalow “a rising lifestyle vlog worth keeping an eye on.” TJ is getting requests to do videos for other DIY projects—more than just _Puzzlers_ costumes—which he and Ryan are both excited about, and Constance and Trey are both just thrilled to have so many robot costumes lying about to play with.

And Cora looks at how happy her kids and father-in-law and co-worker are, and how . . . well, bewildered, really, but still happy, her husband is, and most of the time just laughs herself sick at the idea that TJ has become a daddy blogger. But sometimes a hint of self-doubt works its way in, and when TJ is filming his final _Puzzlers_ video—a tiny Sockit costume to fit Trey—he notices.

Ryan and TJ have taken a break so Ryan can use the bathroom, and Cora takes the chance to come in to the kitchen for a drink. Something must show on her face, because as soon as TJ gets a look at her, he moves close to her. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” she says. “That costume’s gonna be adorable on Trey.”

“Thank you,” he says. “Now, again, what’s wrong? And don’t try to lie to me.” He smiles. “I’m a detective, remember? Do you want me to have to interrogate you?”

Cora looks up at him . . . and can’t resist smiling. He is such a massive dork. It’s one of the things she loves about him.

Another is that he understands her completely, often without words. “Are you unhappy about the videos?”

“No,” she says.

He fixes her with a look, and she stares back a long moment, and then sighs. “Fine,” she says. “It’s not the videos, exactly. It’s . . . the costumes.” She takes a sip of her drink to buy herself some time to think how to put this. She trusts TJ more than she has ever trusted anyone in her life. And she loves him more than she has ever loved anyone in her life, other than their children. But a long lifetime with a crap stepdad and crap boyfriends taught her to be careful with revealing any information that makes her vulnerable, and even five amazing years with TJ haven’t been enough for her to completely unlearn that habit.

But it’s been enough time for TJ to learn that the best response is to wait patiently. And this he does, his dark eyes warm and kind.

And she looks at him and thinks, wow, she loves this man.

“It’s that when we decided to have kids, I promised myself I would make sure they had the best childhoods imaginable. Holidays, birthdays, family trips . . .”

She trails off, but TJ hears the words she’s not saying. “The childhood you never got to have,” he says quietly.

She nods, not trusting herself to speak for a moment.

“So,” he guesses, “you thought that would involve you making all their Halloween costumes.”

“Like your mom,” she agrees, her gaze down on her drink.

TJ’s silent a moment. “So . . . do you want to make this for Trey instead? Because you can, if you want.”

And all of Cora’s embarrassment spurts out of her at once. “I can’t! That’s the problem! Watching you do all this is making me admit to myself, I am horrible at this stuff! You sit down with a hot glue gun and you make these amazing things. I tried and I mostly just managed to burn myself and paint my sweats green.”

She glances at TJ and sees that he’s fighting back a laugh. “Yeah, I saw those in the laundry.”

“It’s not funny!” she insists. “I’m a terrible mother!”

All the laughter goes out of TJ, and he turns to face her completely, his hands on her upper arms. “Darling,” he says quietly, “you know I don’t like to disagree with you. Because if it ever came to a fistfight, we both know you’d win.”

“I really would,” she agrees solemnly.

“But you are wrong. You are an amazing mother. You have an incredibly difficult job but you still find time to go to Constance’s preschool programs and take Trey to his checkups. You take the kids to the park and the library and the zoo, you read books with them, you play with them, you put them to bed whenever you can and when you can’t, you always make sure that I do it, or Dad does. You are there for them, absolutely.” He gives her a half-smile. “They know that you love them. And that’s so much more important than whether you can make a Halloween costume by hand. They are incredibly lucky to have you, because you are making sure that they have a safe, loving environment to grow up in.” He leans in close. “You are one million times the parent your stepdad was,” he says softly. "You broke that cycle. A long time ago."

And Cora’s eyes slip closed, to stop the flow of the tears that sting there. TJ says nothing, just waits and lets her collect herself.

“I love you,” she says, her eyes still closed.

She can hear the smile in his voice. “I love you too.”

Finally she can open her eyes without the threat of tears. “Thank you,” she says. “I guess I’ll just learn to live with the fact that you’re more . . . craft-y than me. And clearly you’re better at being a housewife than I am.” And then she tries to joke, “Your mom probably would’ve been horrified, if she ever met me and knew I was such a disaster at this kind of stuff. She'd wonder why you married someone who can barely use a glue gun.”

“My mom would have loved you,” TJ insists. “She knew what matters. She’d’ve seen how much you love our kids, and how much you love me, and that would’ve been much more important to her than robot costumes. It's certainly much more important to me than robot costumes.” And then he grins. “Besides, Mom’d be proud to know that all the time she spent making me help her make our Halloween costumes paid off.”

Cora hesitates. "You don't mind being the one who's always going to have to make the Halloween costumes in the family?"

"I have no problem being the 'craft-y' one in this relationship. There's so much more to you than whether you can follow a crafting tutorial. I love you exactly as you are. And so do the kids."

“Thank you," she says quietly, and wraps her arms around his waist, and they stand there in the kitchen until Ryan’s voice cuts in.

“That was beautiful.” His voice is choked with tears.

“Ryan!” Cora turns to see him standing there with his camera, recording them. “How long have you been there?”

“Since ‘they are incredibly lucky to have you’?” He doesn’t look at all apologetic for eavesdropping on such a personal conversation, and Cora hides her face in TJ’s shoulder and laughs.

“So can I put that conversation in the next video?”

“No!” the Carusos declare in unison.

“It’s very personal,” TJ points out.

“Okay, just the end of it, then. When you were talking about your mom. That's the kind of stuff that attracts an audience.”

Ryan bugs them so much about it as they finish the video that finally they agree he can do a version of the video with the end of their conversation and run it by them for approval. Cora is expecting to refuse him permission, but the video he returns is actually very tasteful; there’s none of their discussion about her lingering issues from her stepfather. It simply starts with her saying she’ll have to live with the knowledge that he’s better at crafts than she is, and ends with Cora demanding to know how long Ryan's been standing there.

It plays well in the video, and Cora decides that maybe other people could benefit from watching her grapple with this thought process. So they approve it.

This video goes viral: 228,000 hits in the first day. And it’s not just that Trey looks adorable in his little tiny costume. The comments blow up with women admitting they’ve always felt like they’re not quite good enough as mothers if they’re not Pinteresting every single aspect of their lives. Think pieces are written in response to it. Magazines reach out to Cora and TJ for comment. TJ’s first non-robot video, how to put up holiday lights, does respectably enough that he and Ryan decide to continue making DIY videos. Halloween comes, and Constance has her choice to costumes to wear.

And all the while, Cora just makes an effort, every second of every day, to make sure her kids know that she loves them and that she is there to protect and look after them. And when Constance takes her hand while they’re trick-or-treating and declares “You’re the best mom,” she decides to believe that what her little girl says is true.

. . . . . .

fin


End file.
